


The Heroes of Life and Love

by Kiranokira



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Post-Canon, Takeshi the Excellent Dad, Triplet Shenanigans, Yuuko the Awesome Mom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-14
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-12-29 19:19:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12091683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiranokira/pseuds/Kiranokira
Summary: While Yuuri and Viktor are visiting Hasetsu, the triplets figure out a new and clever way to take candid footage of them.





	The Heroes of Life and Love

**Author's Note:**

> A leading factor in why I can't choose a favorite character from YOI is that the triplets stole every scene they were in. So here's my little tribute to the three forces that brought Yuuri and Viktor together. ♡

The triplets hold a production meeting around the kotatsu on Tuesday evening. Axel leads the discussion, Lutz takes notes, and Loop films for posterity.

“I think it’s clear to all of us after what happened today that we should change our filming methods,” Axel begins, clasping her hands on the table before her.

Lutz and Loop nod.

“The talent has gotten too good at spotting our standard equipment,” Axel says.

Lutz sketches a smartphone with an X over it.

“So we just need new equipment,” Loop says. “Something he won’t expect!”

Lutz moves her chin to the palm of her hand, nose creased in thought. “What about a hidden camera?”

“That’ll give us too much footage to edit,” Axel says.

“What about a camera on Makkachin?” Loop suggests.

“She’s not tall enough,” Lutz says.

The three of them descend into determined silence, frowning at the same point at the center of the table.

Then, triumphantly, Loop shouts, “I’ve got it!”

She stops recording and pulls her sisters over to the corner of the room where she quickly whispers her plan to them.

•

Their parents watch from the sofa.

Takeshi passes a wedge of mikan to Yuuko without comment.

Yuuko takes it with the hand that isn’t covering her entire face.

•

Yuuri leans on the side of the rink with a grimace. There’s a stitch in his side, possibly from an excess of deep-fried festival food last night, and no amount of stretching has lessened his discomfort.

When Viktor stands up from lacing his skates, his eyes travel from the center of the rink where he expects Yuuri to be over to where he actually is. “Yuuri? What’s wrong?” he calls.

Yuuri’s, “Nothing!” is automatic, which of course means Viktor doesn’t believe him. He closes the distance between them and reaches out to touch Yuuri’s hair. “Tell me.”

Yuuri turns to face him and winces when pain strikes through his abdomen. “My stomach hurts a little,” he says, feeling somewhere between six and eight years old.

On cue, an actual eight-year-old pops up next to Viktor and beams. “You ate too much last night!” Axel tells him cheerfully. “You ate more than Loop!”

Loop springs up on Viktor’s other side. “Yeah, and I ate a _ton!_ ”

Yuuri sighs.

Viktor strokes his thumb over Yuuri’s cheek. “Rest for a bit,” he says.

“I’ll be fine,” Yuuri insists.

“ _Or_ you’ll vomit on the ice,” Viktor counters, smiling, “and then Yuuko will make us clean it up.”

Yuuri opens his mouth to argue, but he can’t deny that’s a very likely outcome. He hobbles off the ice to the nearest bench and curls in on himself, finally giving in to the ache there. Viktor sits next to him and pets his neck absently.

“Where’s Lutz?” Yuuri asks his knees.

“She’s in the bathroom!”

“She ate too much, too.”

Axel and Loop burst out giggling and then their receding footsteps pound the floor.

Yuuri waits until it’s quiet before he rests his head on Viktor’s shoulder. “Sorry,” he murmurs.

Viktor kisses his temple. “We’ll go running after lunch, my pretty piglet,” he says, his voice soothing.

After a long moment of silence, Yuuri answers with a smack to his thigh. Viktor laughs and hugs him.

•

Viktor drags Yuuri off to karaoke at least once a week. The triplets only manage to get one trip on film, and it’s because their parents bring them along.

The karaoke place is a squat, family-run establishment, and none of the rooms come with furniture, so they make do with cushions on the floor. Viktor dedicates his first ballad to Makkachin, curled up in his lap. It’s a testament to Viktor’s local celebrity that most establishments in Hasetsu never comment on Makkachin’s ubiquitous presence. It helps that she’s a remarkably calm dog, and she only acts up when there’s a possibility of food rolling off a table.

Viktor finishes and passes the microphone to Yuuri, and Yuuri firmly passes the microphone to Yuuko.

They all try to get Yuuri to sing, but he insists he’s terrible.

“Liar!” Takeshi roars. “He’s got the voice of a siren!”

“Th-that’s _definitely_ not true,” Yuuri says, face red.

Viktor returns from the phone with a bright smile on his face. Six minutes later, a staff guy stops by the room in a pressed uniform to deliver three cassis sour cocktails, which Viktor promptly collects and places in front of Yuuri one by one.

“Viktor!” Yuuri squawks.

The triplets only hear him because they’re sitting close enough. Their parents pay no attention, distracted by their debate over which duet to tackle (Yuuko is insisting on “Bohemian Rhapsody”, and Takeshi wants to try “A Whole New World”).

“ _I_ can’t drink them all,” Viktor says, pouting. “I didn’t know they’d give me three.”

“How many did you _ask for?_ ” Yuuri asks, not buying it.

Rather than answer, Viktor perks up. “Maybe the triplets could try some,” he says. “There’s probably more juice than alcohol, right?”

“Cool!”

“Yes, please!”

“ _Davai!_ ”

In the end, Yuuri, Yuuko, and Takeshi split the drinks. Viktor orders something else the triplets don’t recognize and sips from his frosted glass with a satisfied smile as a very slightly tipsy Yuuri sings a love song, red-faced, at the television screen. When Yuuri finishes (to wild applause from his audience of six), he passes the microphone off to Lutz and retreats to his cushion beside Viktor in the corner. He probably thinks no one notices when he tucks his hand into Viktor’s and kisses Viktor’s cheek.

Axel turns off the camera and slips the device back into her vest pocket.

•

Huddled in front of her sisters, Loop peers around the corner of a secondhand clothing shop into the covered market. She quickly spots Yuuri and Viktor through the ambling Thursday afternoon shoppers, standing together at the Sanadas’ vegetable stand.

They’re holding hands while Viktor picks up various vegetables (seemingly at random) and places them into the small tray Yuuri’s balancing on the palm of his free hand.

Mrs. Sanada walks out from the back, already laughing. “Use both hands!” she teases, whacking Yuuri on the hip with a level of strength most people wouldn’t expect from a ninety-four-year-old.

Yuuri starts to remove his occupied hand from Viktor’s, but Viktor gives him such an anguished face that Yuuri only smiles at his shoes and gives Viktor’s hand an obvious squeeze. They finish choosing vegetables as they are, and Mrs. Sanada keeps chuckling long after they’re gone.

Loop reaches behind her to swat at whichever sister is closest. This is the real gold.

•

During summer vacation, the triplets spend an inordinate amount of time either at the rink or the onsen. Yuuko or Takeshi occasionally go with them to the onsen, but in a small town like Hasetsu, the community as a whole serves as a collective babysitter.

That’s how they manage to stay at the onsen all day, occasionally trading off filming responsibilities.

After lunch, Mama Katsuki loans them a DVD from their library and Mari gives them permission to watch it in her room. Papa Katsuki brings up a tray of rice crackers and juice boxes.

“Weren’t there three of you?” he asks, laughing.

Loop and Lutz, sprawled on Mari’s bed, chime, “Bathroom!” in unison.

“Ah, all right! Have fun!”

When he’s gone, Lutz taps her cheek. “Maybe we should think up some other places we could be.”

Loop considers it with a hum.

“How’s the movie?”

Both of them jump and peer over their shoulders at Viktor leaning in the doorway and smiling angelically back at them.

“Very good,” Lutz says in English.

“Where’s Axel?” he asks.

They hesitate. And blink.

“Bathroom,” Loop says.

Lutz nods quickly.

“I see,” Viktor says. His eyes move up to the screen. “You’re not going to pause the movie until she gets back?” His Japanese has improved a lot over the last couple of years, to the point where he’s acted as co-conspirator in a number of their past projects. For obvious reasons, they haven’t let him in on this one.

It’s starting to seem like a miscalculation.

Lutz pauses the movie.

Loop coughs.

At last, Axel runs in and leaps onto the bed. “I’m back!” she yells. “Play, play!”

As the three of them scramble for the remote at the same time, Viktor grins and leaves without another word.

Axel gets up to close the door and sighs when it’s shut. “I think he’s onto us,” she hisses.

•

According to Axel, she was getting footage of Yuuri cuddling with Makkachin when Viktor happened to step in front of the cluster of plants she was hidden inside.

“Ahh, Makkachin, you and my Yuuri are adorable together,” Viktor had cooed in Japanese. “I should get a camera.”

Axel promptly stopped filming and escaped as soon as Viktor left the room.

•

Even though Viktor clearly suspects, he doesn't do any further investigating and even seems to leave his guard down more than before.

Lutz chalks it up to their clever choice of film equipment. “We’re geniuses,” she concludes. “No one has any idea.”

Her sisters agree, smirking.

•

By the last week of their summer vacation, they’ve accumulated a staggering amount of footage. They upload it to the family laptop, then transfer it to their personal external hard drive.

Yuuko walks into the living room just as they’re unplugging it. “What’s that?” she asks.

Lutz stashes the hard drive into her backpack and shouts, “Nothing we have homework bye!”

Yuuko watches them sprint into their bedroom. Lutz beams at her and Loop waves the spy glasses they’ve been using. Axel yells, “Bye, Mama!” before the door shuts.

“Do you know how they got that stuff?” she asks Takeshi.

“Their Instagram followers probably sent them stuff to their box at the post office.”

“ _They have a box at the post office?_ ”

“…You didn’t get it for them?”

•

The triplets toast their success later that night with frosty glasses of tea.

“Now to edit!” Loop says, glee etched clear on her face.

“How much footage do we have?”

“Ninety-seven gigabytes.”

“Oh, I thought we had at least two terabytes.”

“We had more, but a lot of the footage had someone’s fringe in it.”

Axel and Loop send Lutz a stern look, but she folds her arms without shame.

“My hair needs to breathe,” Lutz says, lifting her nose in the air.

“Well, anyway,” Axel says with a return to bright and eager, “ninety-seven is plenty. Who has the external hard drive?”

There’s a casual search of the space around the kotatsu, then a slightly more frantic search when none of them find it. They scour the contents of their backpacks, dive under the sofa cushions, draw apart the curtains, and bring the living room to a state of abject chaos. At last, when the truth is too plain to ignore anymore, Axel claps both hands over her mouth in horror. “It’s gone!” she wails.

The ensuing scream from all three of them wakes their mother, who smirks and returns Takeshi’s sleepy squeeze.

•

The video is exactly thirty seconds long, and it ramps up views and likes more rapidly than anything Viktor has ever posted.

The music Viktor chooses for the background is an audio clip from a composition he had made for his short program in 2012. He has it on the best authority (Mari) that it’s one of Yuuri’s favorite songs. He favors jump cuts, but there are a fair few fancy transitions thrown in for embellishment. After it’s posted he watches the video over and over, pleased with all the moments the triplets have managed to immortalize.

By the time Yuuri wakes up, the video’s been up for six hours and Viktor’s mentions across every platform are bursting. Twitter’s already crashed on him three times. When he hears Yuuri stir with a soft sound, Viktor switches his phone to airplane mode and snuggles back in beside him.

“Where did you go?” Yuuri murmurs in sleep-slurred Japanese.

“Nowhere,” Viktor says, nuzzling his throat. “You've been lying on my arm all night.”

Yuuri pries his eyes open with an urgent, apologetic noise, but then his body seems to report that no, there are no limbs underneath it. “Stop it,” Yuuri moans. He tucks his face against Viktor’s hair and whines.

Viktor grins. Sleepy Yuuri is too adorable to resist teasing. He tickles Yuuri’s side just to see how far he can push.

Yuuri responds by rolling onto his other side.

“ _Yuu_ ri,” Viktor laughs. “Come back.”

He watches Yuuri scoop up his phone from the bedside table and unlock it. Viktor decides the baffled sound he makes as his eyes widen is the new cutest thing he's done today.

“ _What_ video?” he asks Viktor in English.

•

The triplets spend the morning under a dark cloud of betrayal and resentment, and their mother’s chipper mood does nothing to improve things.

“You didn't have to take the spy glasses too,” Axel says, her pout mutinous.

“I didn't,” Yuuko says. “Your dad did.”

Takeshi salutes them with his peach juice. “No spy glasses ’til you’re in high school.”

Yuuko kicks him under the table.

“College,” he corrects.

The triplets crouch lower into their sullen fog.

“I also changed your box number at the post office,” Yuuko continues. She pours dressing on her salad and takes a smug bite of a tomato. “From now on, we have vetoing power over the gifts you get from strangers on the internet.”

“Mama!” Lutz cries, scandalized. “Haven't we suffered enough?”

“He took our views!” Loop wails.

“Our likes!” Axel adds.

Takeshi pours them more tea and says, “There there.”

•

When they actually sit down and watch the whole video, the triplets grudgingly admit that he did a good job with their footage.

It also helps that Viktor dedicated the video in his notes “to the video’s filmmakers Axel, Loop, and Lutz, the true heroes of life and love”.

•

Over the next week, he uploads six more videos from the footage.

The triplets get top billing, and Yuuri likes every one.

**Author's Note:**

> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/hadakanomind) | [Tumblr](http://kyashin.tumblr.com/)


End file.
